Monday, April 21, 2014

New Growth

 Little plants coming up everywhere.   Above are tomato seedlings getting ready to be put into the hoophouse for the  indoor tomato crop.
 Delphinium seedlings
 Gai Lon plants ready to go out in the garden. And summer squash just coming up.
Not much to eat in the garden quite yet but there is hope and promise in these little plants.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Spring has Sprung

 Spring has sprung.  it was actually 66 F the other day.  Took my sweater off, opened all the doors and aired out the house.  Hung laundry on the line outside.  Whoopee.
 And, of course, the spring work has begun.  Joel planted out 540 little lettuce plants.  They are under a cover of Remay to keep the golden crowned sparrows from eating them and to give them a bit of extra warmth as the nights are still cold.  That was about a week ago and they are 3 times that size now.  Yay!!  Can't wait for the first salad.  We do buy the occasional head of Romaine from the grocery store but are mainly eating purple sprouting broccoli and kale these days.  Good stuff but the first fresh lettuce from the garden is like an elixir.
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 Daffodils and hellebores and the first tulips, grape hyacinths, early plum blossoms and forsythia are blooming.  The grass is green and even needed to be mowed yesterday.
 I'm cleaning marigold seeds that I saved from last year.  I never fail to be amazed by the bounty of nature.  All these seeds from a handful of seed pods.  If left to their own devices most would never get a chance to grow but would either be a gift to seeds eaters like birds or bugs, or be reabsorbed back into the soil by bacteria. 
All winter I have been weaving and knitting up a storm.  Now I have to get everything hemmed and fringed and ironed and finished and tagged.  The first Farmers Market is April 12.  We won't have a lot of vegetables yet but I will have lots of rugs and potholders and tea towels.

We're off on another year.